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Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives Review - Xbox

The Ford Mustang - one of the United States' top supercars and also one of the most desired all over the world. But the Mustang saga can only be matched by the volume and density of it's enthusiasts. The rich collect Mustangs from the 1960's to the present day models and even there are those who went the extra mile to try and acquire a concept car from Ford. Then there are those who settle for a few classic Mustangs, and a recent model which they drive around on a daily basis and take care of more than a mother does a child. Then you have those who love Mustangs, but are either too young to own one or don't have the dispensable income for a $70,000 car. These will be playing Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives and fulfilling their dreams of driving every Mustang ever created. But in this present day, after Forza Motorsport has been released, and given nearly perfect scores all around the world, can a budget game based around one car compete? Will the fans shrug it off and settle for the few well-engineered Mustangs in Forza Motorsport Sacrificing quantity for quality? Let's take a closer look at the game.

Gameplay

Ford Mustang was never set out to be a simulator; in fact some people would say it wasn't set out to compete seriously in the racing genre. The fact that it focuses on the Ford Mustang makes it more of a novelty fan accessory than a serious contender in today's vicious games market. The Menu system is very basic, featuring The Ford games' feature of pronouncing most of the choices you make. It includes singleplayer, multiplayer and options. Singleplayer is like most other Ford Racing games, consisting of arcade, career and challenge modes. Arcade mode has the usual game types you would expect in a racing game, such as quick race, time attack and elimination, the latter being a circuit race where the car in last position at the end of each lap is eliminated, thus leaving the first 2 cars to battle it out in the final lap. Career mode is a set of races which allow you to chose a Mustang, pick a track, and go against 3 other AI Mustangs in a race for 'points' which allow you to unlock more tracks and Mustangs. The challenge mode is a series of time trials and slaloms that you must finish in a set time with a certain car, thus allowing you to unlock certain features such as newer Mustangs and/or tracks.

The AI for Ford Mustang is not one of the best out there, and the catch-up feature, which is intended to help cars in lower positions to 'catch up' to that car in 1st place, is a tad too overdone, whereby the car which was in last place a few seconds ago, can overtake you by a mile whenever you rub a wall or slam into one of ... (continued next page)